Eugene Paoline
Professor And Graduate Director Of Criminal Justice, University Of Central Florida
Key Findings
- Almost 10% of the total incidents involving CEDs resulted in officer injuries.
- Considering only the incidents involving CEDs when physical resistance is involved, the percentage of officer injuries increases to 11.6%.
- Officers were injured 5% of the time when only using CEDs, 14.2% when officers were using CEDs in combination with a form physical resistance, and 9.6% when no CED was used.
- CEDs significantly decrease officer injury rate when officers do not combine the CED with another form of physical resistance in comparison to officers that do not use CEDs.
- When comparing officers using only CEDs and using physical force, injury rates are lower for officers using only CEDs.
- When comparing officer’s using only CEDs and using only another weapon, injury rates are lower for officers using only CEDs.
Description
In the article, “Police Use of Force and Officer Injuries: Comparing Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) to Hands- and Weapon-Based Tactics,” Paoline and his co-authors examine the impact that use of conducted energy devices (CEDs) have on police officer injury rates. CEDs are weapons that are meant to shield officers from close-up harm. Previous research with multiple variables has been unable to consistantly prove officer injury rates when CEDs are implemented. To conduct their research, the authors used data from National Institute of Justice reports that examined the impact of CEDs and officer injuries in more than 12,000 incidents nationally across six agencies. The results showed that 9.9% of the total incidents involving CEDs resulted in officer injuries. When only including incidents involving CEDs where physical resistance is involved, the percentage of officer injuries increases to 11.6%. When all cases are considered, officers were injured 5% of the time when only using CEDs, 14.2% when officers use CEDs in combination with a form physical resistance, and 9.6% when no CED is used. When the data only includes instances of physical resistance, the officer injury rates increase to 5.7% when officers use CEDs, 14.8% when officers use CEDs with a form of physical force and 11.5% when no CED was used. Overall, CEDs significantly decrease officer injury rate when officers do not combine the CED with another form of physical force in comparison to officers that do not use CEDs. When comparing officers using only CEDs and only using physical force, injury rates are lower for officers using only CEDs. When comparing officer’s using only CEDs and only using only another weapon, injury rates are lower for officers using only CEDs. In conclusion, the authors note that although the results show CEDs do decrease officer injury incases, it does not mean introducing CEDs will eliminate officer injury.